CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sloane entered her cubicle space like a small whirlwind.
She instantly pulled the video up on her laptop and watched it as she pulled up the digital files from Crawford on her smaller, secondary monitor.
The building was quiet at this hour, most agents having gone home for the evening.
Only the night shift remained, and they were occupied with their own cases, milling away elsewhere in the building.
As she started looking through Crawford's participant files, she knew there was a chance they could become tedious.
She needed to identify every face that appeared in the videos and match them to names and businesses in Crawford's records.
She started the video from the beginning again and paused it at the first appearance of a graduate.
A woman in her forties was standing in what looked like a photography studio, smiling at the camera.
The clip lasted maybe four seconds before transitioning to Crawford speaking about mentorship success.
She opened a new document on her laptop and started a list, adding Torres's name along with a note about which video she'd appeared in and for how long.
Sloane checked her phone, hoping Kate had maybe chimed in and she’d missed it.
But there was no response from Kate yet.
That was fine. Kate had looked quite tired when they’d parted ways.
She was probably home by now, maybe having dinner with her family, decompressing from a brutal day. The text could wait until morning.
Except there might be another victim by morning.
Sloane pushed the thought away and returned to her work.
She played the video in short bursts, pausing every time a new face appeared, taking screenshots, searching through Crawford's files for matches.
Some graduates appeared for several seconds.
Others flashed by so quickly that Sloane had to replay the clip multiple times to get a clear image.
After fifteen minutes, she had five names on her list. Five more successful graduates who'd been featured in Crawford's promotional materials, mixed in among the recent victims. Any one of them could be the killer (or the next victim), but Sloane needed to narrow it down further.
She pulled up the older videos and repeated the process, building out her list with notes about which graduates appeared in multiple videos, who had the most screen time, and who Crawford seemed to promote most heavily.
In doing that, it turned out that only two names appeared across multiple videos with significant screen time: Jennifer Grisham and Mary Latrobe.
Sloane checked her phone again. Still nothing from Kate. It was 7:52 now.
She returned to her list and considered it, still feeling that this new theory might just have some wheels on it.
Jennifer Grisham's bakery had already been ruled out.
While Grisham had been defensive and oddly confident, she hadn't seemed like a killer.
More importantly, she'd been at her bakery with a customer when they'd arrived.
Establishing a precise timeline would require more work, but Sloane's instincts said Grisham wasn't their suspect.
That left Mary Latrobe.
Sloane pulled up Latrobe's file from Crawford's collection.
She'd graduated from Second Act Success in 2024 and opened a boutique interior design firm called Latrobe Interiors.
According to her website, she specialized in high-end residential projects with a focus on what she called "curated minimalism.
" She apparently worked with high-end clients from New York, Dallas, and even internationally in London and Beijing.
Sloane clicked through Latrobe's portfolio. The designs were sleek and expensive-looking, the kind of spaces that appeared in home décor magazines. Client testimonials praised her attention to detail and her ability to transform spaces into "works of art."
She appeared in three different promotional videos, with the most recent one featuring a full twenty-second segment about her business.
Crawford had clearly been proud of Latrobe's success, showcasing her work more prominently than most other graduates.
But Latrobe's social media presence had gone quiet over the past six months.
Her last Instagram post was from March, showing a completed project for a client in the West End.
Before that, she'd been posting regularly, sometimes multiple times per week. The sudden silence was notable.
Sloane dug deeper into Crawford's files and found Latrobe's original business plan submission from 2023.
It was comprehensive and detailed, covering market analysis, competitive positioning, and operational strategies.
But as Sloane read through it, she started recognizing elements that seemed familiar.
It was also no real surprise that Latrobe had built her business using Ellis's stolen work, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
And Crawford had promoted her success heavily, featuring her in multiple videos as proof that his program created thriving businesses.
What if Latrobe had realized that Crawford was adding more and more success stories to his promotional materials?
What if she'd watched her prominence diminish as he featured other graduates?
What if she'd decided that the only way to maintain her position as one of Crawford's primary success stories was to eliminate the competition?
Sloane checked her phone one more time. 8:03 p.m. Still no response from Kate.
She looked at and considered Latrobe again.
The social media silence bothered Sloane.
Someone who'd been posting regularly for years didn't just stop without reason.
Something had changed in Latrobe's life around March.
Something that had made her stop promoting her business online. That was her own guess, anyway.
Or something that had made her start focusing on other things. Like watching Crawford's promotional videos. Like studying the faces of other graduates who were competing for his attention, and starting to make some very dark, terrible plans for them.
Sloane made her decision. She needed to talk to Mary Latrobe tonight. If Latrobe was their killer, waiting until morning could mean another victim. And if she was innocent, then at least she could rule her out and focus on the other names on the list.
Part of her knew she should wait for Kate.
Kate was supposed to be tailing her, or mentoring her (one in the same, as far as Sloane was concerned), and Kate had decades more experience.
But Kate had told her to get some rest, had driven home to be with her family.
Kate deserved that time. She'd been pulled away from her sort-of retirement, and Sloane had seen the exhaustion weighing on her when she’d gotten into her car to head home.
Besides, Sloane wanted to prove herself. She wanted to show Kate that her instincts were solid, that she could work independently, that she was more than just a young agent who'd gotten lucky recognizing someone in a video.
She pulled up Latrobe's address from the business registration records. The interior design firm operated out of a studio space in Carytown, but Latrobe's residential address was listed as an apartment in the Fan district, about twenty minutes away.
Sloane composed yet another text to Kate: "I may have found another lead. Going to check out Mary Latrobe now. Interior designer, graduated 2024, featured heavily in promotional videos. Address: 2847 Grove Avenue, Apt 3B. Will update you after I talk to her."
She hit send and gathered her things, closing her laptop and pocketing her phone.
This little excursion may turn out to result in absolutely nothing but wasted time, but that was fine with her.
The three dead women involved in this mess deserved the proper care and attention.
And if going through the faces in those videos one by one was what it took, Sloane would make sure it got done.
Her phone buzzed as she reached her vehicle.
For a moment, she thought it might be Kate responding, but it was just an email from another agent requesting help on a report from a small case last week.
Kate was still silent, probably putting her son to bed or having a late dinner with her husband. And if so, good for her.
Sloane made her way back down to the parking garage, and three minutes later, she was pulling up the navigation to Grove Avenue. Eighteen minutes. She could be there before 8:30, talk to Latrobe, and either confirm her suspicions or rule her out entirely.
She pulled out of the parking garage and merged into evening traffic… and still, there was no response from Kate.